Chapter One- The Dream

Riku

Riku was lying on the warm sand, watching the sun go down at the mainland on his home in Destiny Islands. He didn't know why but recently he liked stargazing, watching the white stars blink in and out of the night sky. But, he always felt something was missing in his new hobby, though he still continued to do this, every night since he had his last adventure.

He didn't know how much time had passed before he felt his eyes drooping slowly. Before he knew it, he drifted off into a slumber.

In the dream, he is still on Destiny Islands, my home world, but on the main land. He was six years old as he looked at his reflection in the water. Riku looked over to his right and saw a girl a year younger than him, with shoulder length raven black hair, looking up at the night sky.

"Riku, look!" She says, pointing up above her.

Looking in the direction she was pointing, Riku saw a single star streak across the dark twinkling canvas. He looked back at the girl and saw her eyes closed, her hands clasped, making a wish. Riku felt a smile come upon his lips as she opened her eyes, she smiled back at him.

"What did you wish for?" he asked her.

"I wished that me, you and Sora can be friends forever!" she blushed as she saw my look.

"We always will be," Riku said with a nod. "I promise."

They looked back up at the sky once more and silence overcame them for a long moment.

"Riku..." The girl pulled him out of the silence and Riku found himself looking back at her. "Can you promise me something?" she asked in a soft voice.

"Sure, what is it?"

She took a deep breath, still not meeting his gaze. "Promise...to protect me Riku. Even if you forget who I am, my name even, that's all I want. Protect me from the dark beings that lurk in the shadows..."

Riku opened his eyes and jumped, only to be pressed back in his seat by a seat belt. Sweat ran down his face as he looked around. Everyone was already awake and talking. The King was sitting in the pilots chair and Sora in the co-pilots. Lea was practicing revealing his keyblade while Donald and Goofy watched.

Kairi looked at him curiously. "Are you okay, Riku?" she asked. "Did you have another nightmare or something?"

Riku shook his head. "Nah, I'm fine," he gave her one of his small smiles.

She wasn't convinced, but didn't push it and sat back in her seat. Riku was glad Kairi didn't push him like she used to, he wouldn't hear the end of it that he was dreaming about a girl.

The girl in the dream appeared back in his mind again. Who was that girl? Riku thought. Did I know her? Did she come to island before Kairi? That was pretty much impossible since he had a good memory, he would've remembered her if she did exist in his past...

"We're almost there, guys!" Sora said, his cheery voice bringing Riku back from his train of thought. "Oh, and good morning Riku!"

"IF it is morning," Riku said. "Woah!" he said as the Gummi Ship made a ga-lumping sound before it went into speed-mode. The Gummi Ship has to go into speed-mode to get into the world of choice. It's been on GPS-mode, tracking down the presence of Xehanort, the whole time and it led them to this world that no one even knew existed. Well, except the King, of course.

Then, the Gummi Ship came to a complete stop and made a not-to-soft landing.

Riku was the last one off the ship and he stretched, still feeling a bit of sleep tug at him. He looked around and didn't recognize anything.

"What is this place?" Sora asked the King. Everyone turned their attention to King Mickey, suddenly interested as well.

Mickey thought about it for a moment. "Ah ha! I remember now. Ever since you and Riku unlocked the last sleeping world. More worlds, unknown worlds, are revealing themselves. This is "The World of Hearts"."

"The World of Hearts?" Everyone asked at once.

"Sora, Riku, and Kairi will get their own "would be" selves as we adapt to the world," Mickey said. Everyone looking confused, he explained. "They are like little fairies that you can summon and transform with magic. There should be a group of kids who can help us. They are the Guardians of this world."

After Mickey finished his sentence, they started to hear fighting noises nearby. The ran towards the sound and see kids fighting little black things.

"Heartless!" Sora said. "Why are they here?"

"I guess we can't run away from them," Donald said, feeling a bit defeated.

"They are hearts eggs gone bad," Mickey said and raised his hand up to stop Sora, Riku and Kairi from revealing their Keyblades. "Don't show anything that's not from this world. They may not know what a Keyblade is and we don't want to spook them."

"So, we just watch and wait?" Sora asked. After a nod of response from the King, Sora dropped his head and sighed. "Fine..."

Lily

Rima winced as she slid and her knee scraped against a sharp edge of rock. Blood oozed from the cut and Rima almost cried out, but held it in. "Come on Rima-tan!" KusuKusu said as Rima stood, ignoring the pain. "We gotta catch them X-Eggs!"

Rima nodded and, in a flash of light, bowling pins appeared in her hands. She threw them at the nearest group of X-Eggs that were giggling and saying some sad, evil words. With success, she managed the capture them in a bowling pin bind. The X-Eggs struggled but soon gave up after a while.

Looking over at Amu, who gave her a thumbs up, Rima smiled. It's nice to finally do something successful in missions. "Nice Rima!" Amu said with a smile and turned her head to Lily, the newest member of the Guardians. "Now Lily!"

Lily. who's transformation was a Princess, jumped over to Amu and grasped her hand. They pointed at the group of X-Eggs. "Negative Heart, Lock on!"

Then they made a heart with their hands and yelled, "Open heart!" Light in the shape of hearts swirled around the X-Eggs, making them turn back into black eggs, and then the black eggs turned white and sparkled brightly. The eggs tilted in what looked like a nod and then sped off into the city.

Amu and Lily smiled at each other and their transformations disappeared along with everyone else. They heard rustling of bushes and looked over to their right to see a group of strangers approaching them. They all looked weird, like they weren't from this world.

Rima smiled at the boy with spiky hair who looked like he lead the group. He looked...cute. KusuKusu laughed beside her and Rima suddenly scoffed, unpleasing, and wacked her Guardian Chara.

"Those Heartless looked hard to beat..." The spike-brown haired boy said to the kids. Then, after seeing the groups confused face, he realized that he said something that they shouldn't know about and just smiled, laughing nervously.

"Heartless?" Amu said in a confused voice, while still keeping her cool.

"Oh, um...nevermind.." Sora said and held out his hand. "I'm Sora."

Amu shook his hand. "I'm Amu Hinamori," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "Are you guys new here?"

"You can say that," Sora said, putting his hands behind his head, giving her his signature grin. He gestured his friends. "These are my friends: Riku, Kairi, Axel-"

"Lea," Axel murmured, frustrated.

"Lea," Sora continued. "And King Mickey."

"King huh?" Amu said and smiled. "That's really interesting...huh Tadase-kun?"

Tadase's mouth twitched as he tried to hold in the Character Change that makes him act like an air-headed Prince who wants to become King of the world. Amu sighed and changed the subject. "These are my friends: Tadase Hotori: Kings Chair, Rima Mashiro: Queen's Chair, Kukai Souma: Former Jack's Chair, Nagihiko Fujisaki: Present Jack's Chair, and Utau Hoshina. We are the Guardian's of Seiyo Academy Middle School."

"They are the world travelers my uncle was talking about," Tadase said after a moments recognition. He smiled. "You don't have to hide any secrets from us. My uncle received a letter from King Mickey saying that you guys were coming."

"So who's the Princess of this world that we have to protect?" Sora asked, looking around.

"Princess?"

Amu turned and saw Lily and her brother. "Oh, I totally forgot to introduce our newest member. These two are Lily Kentner and her brother, Eric. They came from America..."

That was when Lily character changed into an airheaded princess with her guardian character, Queen Skye.

"I am no mere Princess, you commoner!" Lily yelled, pointing at Sora. "I'm the Queen of the world!"

Amu saw Eric walk over to Lily and hugged her tightly.

"Let me go!" she said and then the character transformation wears off and Lily went limp in her brothers arms.

"That was embarrassing..." Lily sobbed after embarrassing herself..

"That's a awkward character change..." Kairi whispered to Sora.

All of the Guardian Chara's approached Sora curiously. That was when Sora freaked out. "Ahh! What the heck are those things?" Sora said backing away, pointing at the Guardian Character's.

"What things?" Ran looked around.

"He means us, baka." Miki sighed, rolling her eyes.

"What nice people!" Su commented, flying around Kairi's head.

"U-Uh..." Kairi stepped back.

Dia blinked as she looked at Sora with concerning eyes. "Who are you? You seem like...someone who...doesn't know how to..." Dia said, thinking.

"How to...BE A KING!" Tadase's chara, Kiseki, said.

"Who doesn't know how to play sports?" Kukai's chara Diachi said.

"Do Rhythm?" Nagihiko's chara Rhythm said, bouncing up and down.

All the other chara's said foolish things.

"No!" Dia said. "HOW TO SING!" She smiled to herself. Everyone sighed.

"They are our Guardian Characters," Tadase said, gesturing to his Guardian Chara, who looked like a king. "They are who we want to be. I'm surprised you, Sora, Kairi, and Riku, don't have any since you're young enough and supposed to adapt to our world."

Sora looked around and rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe...I don't know who I really want to be yet I guess."

During the conversation, King Mickey looked at Lily curiously. She looked familiar, like a relative of an old friend. He muttered something and Sora looked at him.

"What did you say, your majesty?" he asked.

Mickey shook his head and smiled up at him. "Oh, it's nothing. Well, it's nice to meet you Lily and Eric."

Eric looked at Sora and smiled. "Okay, I want to introduce you to my Guardian Chara's: Riki and Kiki. Riki is my rockstar dream and Kiki is my happy-go lucky dream."

Lily couldn't stop glancing at Riku. It felt like she knew him. Like from a dream. Honestly, he looked like the boy from the dream she had last night. She was on a beach and making a wish. She was younger. Could it be a dream? Or a far off memory?

"Lily..." Violeena, one of Lily's Guardian Chara's said, pulling Lily out of her train of thought. "Introduce us!"

"Oh, right!" Lily said and put on a smile as she motioned to her charas. "My charas are Violeena, my musical dream. Queen Skye, well, you see what she can do...and then Soccana, my sportsy chara."

All of the Guardians introduced their Guardian Chara's and what dreams they held.

The Guardian Chara's also weren't giving up on trying to find Sora and Kairi dreams.

"Maybe your dream is to make...funny faces!" Kusukusu and Kiki said and laughed.

"How to be a rockstar!" Riki said, strumming his guitar.

"I know how to sing, play sports, and I have awesome sword fighting skills," Sora said with a smile. "Yet, I still don't know what my dream is."

"Maybe he'll wake up with Guardian Chara's like you did Amu-chan," Miki said to Amu.

"Maybe yeah," Amu said as they approached the park, which was crowded with people. "We should get good seats before they are filled."

"What's this?" Sora asked and Lily smiled.

"It's a concert for Utau," Lily said and Sora's eyes went wide.

"You're famous?" he exclaimed, about to look at Utau and saw that she was gone.

"She left early to get ready," Lily said and Sora nodded. "You guys came just in time."

At the concert, Utau sang a few of her hit singles and then some songs from her new album. There was an uproar of applause after she finished. Afterwards, everyone went backstage to see her. The King was glancing over at Lily again, trying to remember. She didn't notice him looking at her.

"Your Majesty? Are you sure your okay?"

King Mickey jumped and blinked. "Oh, sorry 'bout that," he said, shoulders drooping.

Rima nodded at Utau. "You did well..."

Later on that night, Sora, Riku, and Kukai were playing soccer. It was two against one. Riku and Kukai versus Sora. Sora kept on losing.

"Man, you're good!" Sora said, panting heavily. "It's not fair for it to be two against one though!"

"It's to train you so if you may have to face two strong opponents and you're the only one to fight them," Riku said with a slight grin. "Think of it as one of the tests to become a Keyblade Master."

Kairi grinned as she leaned over to watch the game. She cheered Sora on as he asked for a rematch, while Rima sighed quietly. She would never understand this game. Kusukusu cocked her head in confusion.

"I want a rematch!" Sora yelled and looked over to see Kairi, Lily, Rima, and Utau watching from the porch. They were at Lily's house since Eric agreed they could keep base there. Sora smiled and pointed at Kukai. "But with transformations!"

Kukai smiled and nodded at Daichi. "Okay then," he and transformed. "You're on Sora!"

"What about I join Sora's team and make it even?"

Sora turned his head to see Nagihiko transformed with Rhythm. Nagihiko smiled and nodded at Sora.

Sora nodded back and transformed into his Valor form. "Okay Nagi," he said, keyblade appeared in hand. "Let's do this!"

It was a close call but Kukai's team won...again. It was by one point which Sora was still grumbling about by the time Kukai and the Guardian's left. It was bedtime by the time he shut up about it.

That night, when Lily and Riku fell asleep, they both had the same dream of being on Destiny Islands again. It didn't change but it made them more confused. Were they a part of each others pasts? Why didn't they remember each other if it was a memory? Will they ever find out? Who knows... You may have to wait and read on the next chapter to find out!